Tomb Of The Inusannon
by MrFredCDobbs
Summary: A four-part existential horror story set in the Mass Effect universe about a group of Alliance marines stranded on a mysterious, uncharted planet. My attempt at a H.P. Lovecraft-style tale.
1. Chapter 1

_[Author's Note: This is a four-part Halloween-themed Mass Effect fanfic with all-original characters. The story takes place late in ME3, following the Rannoch mission and assumes the geth survived. Special thanks to Lara Jayd for beta-ing this chapter.]_

**Chapter 1**

Corporal Arturo Jimenez woke up next to three dead men and screamed. The sound echoed inside the escape capsule, shortly to be replaced by Jimenez's own gasping breaths.

Sergeant Joaquin Torres was slumped in the corner of the capsule and staring silently upwards. Private Vincent Iuliano laid sprawled at his feet. Private Ken Morita, however, was propped up and facing Jimenez. The private's arm had become lodged inside the security harness that held Jimenez in place.

The lifeless bodies in the capsule accounted for three of the best friends Jimenez had ever made. Guys he had been with since joining the crew of the Alliance Navy ship Alsace seven months ago. Torres he had first befriended when they both signed up in Los Angeles three years ago, just two barely age-eligible recruits. Now his friends' lifeless bodies made the already cramped, claustrophobic capsule a literal waking nightmare.

Jimenez closed his eyes and remembered their final moments.

* * *

_"The drive core has failed! All primary power is lost! Entering planet atmosphere! All hands to escape craft!" blared the public address system._

_Jimenez, Morita, Torres and Iuliano sprinted down the corridor. They reached the capsule just as the artificial gravity failed. Jimenez was the first inside. He quickly pulled himself into a seat and yanked the harness down. The others followed him in but without gravity they quickly became a tangled mass of limbs. The Alsace lurched and a flailing foot hit the capsule's launch button. The door sealed and the four crewmembers were rocketed out._

_The capsule's emergency inertial dampeners were not enough. Jimenez's compatriots careened and crashed into each other and the walls of the capsule the entire rest of the way down. Their collective screams only lasted a few seconds before they were bludgeoned into silence._

* * *

After a few minutes of holding his eyes tightly closed, Jimenez' breathing gradually slowed to a normal rate. He became aware that the L-4 biotic implant at the base of his neck must have been struck on the way down too. Some of the neural wires were now causing sharp pains in his neck.

'I've got to get up and get out,' Jimenez said to himself. He slowly opened his eyes and again saw Morita wordlessly staring at him. Gulping hard, he stretched to reach the harness' release. A fresh wave of panic hit when he realized that Morita's arm was jammed into the harness and pinning his own right arm down. He could not reach the release.

_"No, no, no, no, no, no!"_ Jimenez shouted. He twisted and twitched his body every way he could. It was no use. He could not get free. Ten further minutes of thrashing around left Jimenez in tears as he realized what he had to do.

Maybe, maybe, if I can get the angle right, I can do it in one blast, he told himself. _"Dammit Ken. I'm sorry,"_ he told his friend.

Jimenez willed a ball of biotic energy up but he soon realized that he could not aim the ball at Morita's arm from the position he was stuck in. He just wasn't that skilled of a biotic to use his mind alone. He needed his hands free to direct the energy. The best he could do was scorch the outside of Morita's arm. A half-dozen more tries fared no better. He was trapped.

He closed his eyes again for a minute, then began frantically thrashing and screaming. _"Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!"_

The corporal stopped when he heard a loud, dull bang, followed by the sound of the capsule's locking mechanism engaging. The outer door swung open and light poured in. _"They're dead! Dammit!"_ a voice shouted. _"They're all – They're all… Wait, it's Jimenez! He made it!"_

* * *

Jimenez's hands were still shaking as Lieutenant Astrid Karlsson poured him a cup of instant coffee at the surviving crew's makeshift camp. It was a spartan set-up near a shallow creek, the only evidence of water Jimenez had seen since getting out of the capsule. Otherwise the unnamed, uncharted planet's surface was one long, rocky plain no matter which direction he looked in. Only the occasional jagged hill broke up the horizon. There were no trees, bushes or other vegetation save for a simple dark green moss that covered most of the ground and lower hills. A thick, ever-present gray cloud blanketed the sky, keeping the system's sun firmly locked away. No creatures scurried, buzzed or flew. Only the wind broke the stillness.

_"Caffeine is probably the last thing you need right now, but screw it,"_ Karlsson told Jimenez. The officer, a fair-skinned Swedish woman just shy of 40, leaned forward and examined the young biotic's neck. She had always been uneasy around Jimenez, finding his powers unnatural and vaguely troubling. The lump indicating his biotic implant was discolored and inflamed. _"You got a nasty bruise back here. Does it hurt?"_

The corporal brushed her hand away._ "A little sore, but I'm fine,"_ he replied, adding, _"Lost track of time. How long since the crash?"_

_"We hit planetside about four hours ago," _the lieutenant replied. _"Campbell, Borman, Greene and I had the easiest landing. We found Cornett a click away from our capsule. She … didn't last long after we found her. A few others' capsules were just crumpled cans. Feinberg and Moake got out okay. We bumped into each other while searching for the other capsules."_

_"Anyone else?"_ Jimenez asked.

Karlsson shook her head slowly. _"There's still a few unaccounted for, but… Whatever hit the ship and shut down its systems apparently also affected the escape pods. A lot of the ones that did manage to eject must have had their automated systems fail partly or completely during entry. And without inertial dampeners, well…"_

Seven people, Jimenez thought. Seven survivors left out of a crew of fifty-eight. He mentally ran through the list again and a thought struck.

_"So, you're in command then?"_ he asked the lieutenant.

_"Yeah,"_ she softly replied. _"The Alsace's quartermaster is the top-ranking officer remaining. The only one remaining, actually. Don't worry, I've put in a requisition for someone more experienced. Until they arrive though, you're stuck with me."_

Jimenez didn't laugh at Karlsson's gallows humor and she didn't blame him. The bitter truth was that they weren't prepared for this. None of the seven had specialized survival training. Two of them, Sergeant Louis Feinberg and Corporal Mattie Borman, had significant combat experience but on a planet as desolate and lifeless as this one that didn't count for much. Karlsson's specialty was supply chain management, an even more useless talent under the circumstances.

_"How bad off are we?"_ Jimenez asked.

Karlsson shrugged._ "Well, we're stranded with no off-world communications. Could be worse though. Atmosphere's breathable, no toxins. Climate's chilly but bearable. We found a water source, so once we get a filtration system running, we'll be fine on that. Boiling it will do in a pinch. No fauna or insectoids as far as we can tell, which is both good news and bad news. Nothing's going to eat us, but so far we've got nothing we can hunt and eat either. Not sure if the moss we've seen is edible. Moake is running tests. We haven't come across any other flora. With rationing, we've got enough food paste to last maybe a month."_

_"Rescue?"_ Jimenez asked.

"_Our course was registered with Navy command. Ordinarily, it'd be two weeks before they started looking for us. In this war? God knows,"_ she replied. _"What worries me is when they do come, our rescuers could be hit by the same thing that took us down."_

Out of the corner of her eye, Karlsson saw Borman and Feinberg stride into the camp, their lancer rifles slung over their backs. Karlsson and Jimenez looked at them hopefully, but both soldiers ruefully shook their heads.

_"No, no one else,"_ replied Feinberg, a dark-haired soldier with a pronounced New York accent, told the pair as he sat down on a nearby rock._ "We've accounted for everyone."_

_"We did find something,"_ Borman, a freckled brunette with a slight southern drawl, hesitantly added as she removed her gloves. _"Three other ships. All wrecked. Alien designs. One looked batarian. The other ones we didn't recognize. Didn't find anything worth salvaging beyond scrap metal at any of them."_

Jimenez looked up from his coffee. _"Any idea how old the wrecks are?"_

Feinberg kicked some pebbles on the ground. _"The batarian one? Hard to tell. Maybe not that old. The other ones? … The moss had grown all over them. Almost walked right past them."_ He kicked the ground again. _"I wonder how many we did walk past."_

Jimenez and Karlsson exchanged worried glances. An uncomfortable silence descended. Borman broke it a minute later with a barely audible whisper. _"The Bermuda Triangle."_

_"The what?"_ asked Sergeant Zakes Moake, a South African lab tech, as he appeared from around a boulder. He was carrying several large slabs of moss in his arms, his dark bald head and neatly-trimmed beard just barely visible above the pile.

_"An old 20th century superstition,"_ Feinberg explained. _"There was this region in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Florida, where it was said that ships would just mysteriously disappear. Sailors who went into it were supposedly doomed."_

Moake grunted. _"Well, if we're going to tell ghost stories, we should have a campfire, just like when my dad took me out in The Bush. This stuff is no good to eat, but if the fibers are dry enough they ought to burn,"_ he replied, dropping the moss on the ground and rubbing his hands together. _"Anybody got a light? We've got about a half-hour of daylight left."_

* * *

The moss did indeed burn, and slowly. Privates Martin Greene and Luther Campbell, both colony kids, returned from their scouting expedition shortly after Moake got the campfire going. They had found three other capsules but no other survivors. The remaining crew of the Alsace gathered around the fire in silence and let the night fall. It was the first time since the crash that they had time to pause and reflect on the friends they'd lost and the uncertain future they faced.

Moake was the first to break the silence. _"So, tell me more about this Bermuda Triangle, Borman. What went after the ships? Sea monsters? Ghosts? Witches?"_ he asked as he tore off another chunk of moss and tossed it onto the fire.

_"No, nothing like that,"_ Borman slowly replied as she stared into the flickering flames. _"The ships just disappeared. No explanation. Just gone. That's what spooked the sailors so much. There was nothing to fight or flee from. The ocean just swallowed them up."_ She rubbed her hands together and held them closer to the fire. _"The tales of lost ships were handed down from one generation of that era's sailors to the next. Each new generation would scoff at the legend at first, then add new ships to it as their friends sailed inside the triangle, never to be seen again."_

Feinberg let out a low groan. _"Yeah, the ships sunk into the ocean. Because that's what sometimes happened in those days. There's nothing 'mysterious' about that. Hanging out with the Alliance Navy's old-timers 'cause you think they're cool is one thing, Borman, but you don't need to go repeating their superstitious bullshit."_

Borman glared at him. _"And if you listened to the veterans of this Navy maybe you'd be a little wiser. They have respect for history and for the forebears of this Navy. In case you hadn't noticed, this planet is a graveyard of ships. Something caused that. And now we're the latest. There are forces in this universe that we still don't understand and unless we start recognizing the patterns…"_

_"Please, both of you, just stop,"_ Jimenez pleaded._ "My headaches are back and I can't…"_

Karlsson pointed to Greene and motioned him towards Jimenez. _"Alright, that's it, Jimenez. I don't care how dark it is. We're getting some lights and checking out that implant of yours before whatever it's doing to you gets worse. Greene, your sister's a biotic, right?"_

_"Well, yeah, but …"_ the marine stammered in reply.

_"That makes you our resident expert,"_ Karlsson declared._ "Get a close look at Jimenez's implant and…"_

The clear sound of distant footfalls brought all conversation to a halt. The survivors looked in the direction of the sound and spotted a single, blinking light in the dark steadily heading in their direction.

_"A survivor! Someone else made it,"_ Campbell blurted out. He stood up and started waving his arms._ "Hey! Over here!"_

Feinberg grabbed his lancer rifle and pointed it in the direction of the light._ "Can't be. We've accounted for everyone."_

Karlsson unholstered her pistol. _"Campbell, get down! Feinberg's right. Everyone, arm up, but don't fire unless I give the order. Are we clear?"_

The others scrambled and grabbed their weapons, then aimed at the approaching figure. As it moved forward, the heavy footfalls became accompanied by mechanical sounds: beeps, clicks and static. As it drew close, only its one bright light could be seen.

Jimenez struggled to hold his rifle to his shoulder. The dull ache from his migraine had flared into a burning pain and telling his colleagues' voices apart became a strain. He bit down hard on the inside of his cheeks just to have a different pain to distract him from the one in his head.

Karlsson wiped the sweat from her brow. _"Halt and identify yourself!"_ she shouted.

The figure froze in place and let out a longer, louder series of beeps, clicks and stutters.

The pain in Jimenez' head turned into a searing, sharp dagger cutting through his skull. He winced and closed his eyes. The sounds of the outside world were just dim echoes. 'OhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseJustStop,' he thought to himself.

_"Identify!"_ Karlsson hoarsely shouted at the unknown figure, grasping her pistol in both hands._ "Final warning!"_

The other crew took aim, fingers hovering just above their triggers. No one saw that tears had begun to stream down Jimenez' face or that he had begun to twitch and writhe. The pain was all he could feel, all he was aware of.

_"Allied assistance. Platform designation 7F7853,"_ the figure stated in a computerized voice.

_"Step forward. Slowly,"_ Karlsson ordered. _"Turn down that light."_

The figure complied. The light source dimmed as it slowly strode forward and the flickering lights from the campfire began to dance off its tall, slender figure.

_"It's a geth!"_ Greene declared. _"A fucking geth!"_

The synthetic warrior stood more than two meters high and its silver and gray casing was nearly a third covered in random scorch marks. The geth's solitary eye scanned across the survivors, all of whom had trained their weapons on it. The geth brought its pulse rifle to its shoulder.

_"This platform has not initiated hostilities but will act for self-preservation,"_ it warned.

Jimenez heard nothing. He grunted and swayed and let out an anguished scream. Karlsson turned towards him. _"Arturo! What are…"_

The corporal lurched forward. Just as his twitching fingers tightened around his rifle's trigger, Karlsson swung her right arm at him in an upward arc, knocking the barrel of his rifle skyward. It fired for a second before Jimenez collapsed to the ground.

The geth let out a loud series of beeps and clicks and swung its rifle from one human target to another.

_"Hold fire! Hold fire!"_ Karlsson shouted. She turned to the geth._ "He's sick! He didn't intend to fire. We are not hostile!"_

_"To hell with that!"_ Feinberg declared. _"One of these tin bastards killed my brother at the Citadel."_

_"Put a cork in it!"_ the lieutenant yelled in response. _"The geth are our allies now. Lower your rifle, sergeant! That is an order. Everyone, stand down."_

Feinberg grimaced and slowly let his weapon's barrel drop. The other crew gradually complied as well. As their guns lowered, the geth mirrored them.

_"This platform proposes synthetic-organic cooperative assistance but requires further assurance before initiating that protocol,"_ the machine stated.

_"We're marooned on an uncharted planet and didn't know who or what you were. We had to be cautious. Assistance … is welcome,"_ Karlsson told the synthetic soldier as she holstered her pistol. She saluted the geth. _"Lt. Astrid Karlsson, acting commanding officer, Systems Alliance Navy ship Alsace."_

The synthetic saluted in response. _"Geth Consensus Platform Designation 7F7853."_

Karlsson turned to the other crew. _"Greene, Moake, see what the hell is wrong with Jimenez," _she ordered. She then swung back to the geth._ "How did you get here?"_

_"This platform participated in stealth reconnaissance of this sector, monitoring for Old Machine incursions,"_ the geth responded._ "Entered planet orbit for scanning purposes. System failures on ship and geth platforms followed, prompting unscheduled descent to surface. System reboots allowed recovery of ship control but could not fully arrest descent. This platform still functional following re-entry. Other mission-assigned geth programs … non-recoverable."_

_"It crashed and got stranded just like us,"_ Campbell said._ "Lost all of his buddies too."_

Feinberg scoffed._ "Yeah, how do we know it isn't what caused us to crash? How do we know this thing isn't behind it all?"_

Karlsson grabbed the marine by the collar._ "Dammit, Feinberg, what did I say? We're trapped here and if this, this …. thing can help us get off this rock, then we are working with it,"_ she barked at him, exhaustion and stress momentarily getting the better of her. _"You will listen or so help me, I will have you brought up on charges when we do get back." _

She released the grip on his collar and turned to Greene and Moake, who were hunched over Jimenez. _"How is he?"_

_"Breathing. Seems to just be unconscious,"_ Greene replied. _"If an implant goes bad, the recipient can get migraines so intense the brain just straight up shuts down. Sometimes leads to comas. How to fix it? Damned if I know…"_

_"Alright, put him on one of the cots and do what you can for him,"_ Karlsson returned her attention to the geth. _"Do you know what brought your ship down?"_

The synthetic soldier pulled up its omni-tool and tapped away._ "This platform obtained little data from the incident but will provide findings. Nature of attack suggests electro-magnetic pulse weapon of unknown configuration. Geth backup systems could reboot once inside planet atmosphere, indicating that attack has maximum and minimum range."_

_"Campbell, see if you can do anything with this data,"_ Karlsson ordered.

Greene and Moake together grabbed Jimenez and began carrying the biotic to one of the camp's tents. The geth craned its head away from Karlsson to watch them hoist the crewmate up and onto a cot. It then turned to back to the lieutenant. _"Geth patrol ship potentially recoverable. Sufficient additional space for three Alliance organics. Any attempt to leave planet surface not feasible until pulse weapon is disabled."_

Karlsson nodded. _"Right. If we get off the ground we just run the risk of crashing again unless we can stop whatever disables the ships."_

_"Affirmative,"_ replied the geth.

_"What did you say your name was?"_ Karlsson asked the geth.

_"Platform Designation 7F7853,"_ the synthetic replied.

_"Platform Seven Eff—Look, how about we just call you 'Sven' for short?"_ Karlsson requested.

The geth's solitary eye focused on the Alliance lieutenant's face. After a pregnant pause, it stated, _"To further organic-synthetic cooperative assistance, this platform will accept 'Sven' as an alternate designation in analog communications."_

_"I'll take that as geth for 'What's in a name?'"_ Karlsson replied.

From across the campsite Campbell started shouting. _"I've got something! Come here!"_ The other crew and Sven scrambled to gather around the excited marine. _"Matching the geth's data with our own, I've been able to isolate the energy signature that knocked out our ships. I think we can track it to its source!"_

_"Distance?"_ Moake asked.

_"It's… about 20 kilometers east. Give or take,"_ Campbell replied.

The crew exchanged glances.

_"A day's march. We can do it,"_ Karlsson declared. _"If we find and disable whatever that signal is, then half of us can leave this rock on Sven's ship and come back for the rest later. Look, it's better than waiting for a rescue ship that might not come before we run out food and, even if it does, still has to contend with whatever it is that causes the ships to shut down."_

_"Sven?"_ asked Moake.

_"Yeah, that's what I've named the geth,"_ Karlsson replied.

The geth nodded. Moake and Borman cast sideways glances at each other, then shrugged.

_"Is Jimenez going to be up for a march tomorrow?_" Karlsson asked

_"I don't know,"_ Greene replied, pulling out a thermal blanket and tossing it over the corporal. _"My omni-tool says he's not in a coma, just unconscious. Some of the readings are ... well, I don't know what they mean."_

_"Yeah, well, he's biotic. The readings are going to be strange regardless,"_ Karlsson replied. _"Ok, if he's up for it in the morning, we take him. Otherwise, you stay here with him and the rest of us will make the trip. Everyone, get some sleep. We move at dawn."_ She turned to the geth._ "I trust you're coming with us, Sven?"_

_"Affirmative,"_ Sven replied.

Borman approached Karlsson. _"Lieutenant, can we talk for a minute? Privately?"_

Karlsson nodded, then walked a short distance away with Borman. _"What is it?"_ she asked.

The marine dropped her voice to a whisper. _"Look, Feinberg may be an ass but I'm with him on this. How do we know we can trust your buddy 'Sven' here? It's a geth! They stormed the Citadel. They nearly wiped out the quarians. They worked with the reapers, for God's sake. How do we know the reapers aren't still controlling them? Isn't it mighty convenient that it shows up right now, while we're stuck here?"_

The lieutenant stared back at her, then shook her head. _"I don't know, ok? I don't. I just don't. The Alliance says they're on our side now, so I'm going with that. And if something suggests it isn't with us … I'm designating you to keep an eye on Sven because you at least think before you act. Are we understood?"_

_"Aye, aye, lieutenant,"_ Borman replied.

The surviving crewmembers settled in for the night, with Greene taking the first watch. As he settled down near the fire and tossed a fresh lump of moss on it, the geth took a spot on the opposite side of the fire. Greene, a colony kid, initially thought his familiarity with the VI mechs at the farms back home would make the synthetic soldier seem more familiar. Instead he quickly found it unnerving. The mechs back home never seemed to silently stare at him as this thing appeared to be doing.

_"Unlike organics, this platform does not require periods of non-awareness for peak performance,"_ it stated._ "It could perform watch duties by itself."_

Greene shook his head. _"Uhh, thanks for the offer ... 'Sven,' but, umm, Alliance regulations require one of us stay on guard at all times."_

The geth's central 'eye' shifted and rotated. Greene guessed it was focusing on him. _"That is a pretext. You do not trust the geth."_

The human soldier leaned forward. _"Let me ask you this: would you power down with all of us around?"_

_"No, this platform would not. Corollary: it does not have to,"_ Sven replied. _"Additional corollary: it would not even if it had to. It does not trust you either."_

Greene had nothing to say in response. Sven the geth had nothing to add. Both watched the campfire in silence.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

The surviving crew of the Systems Alliance Navy ship Alsace and their geth compatriot broke camp and headed out to find the weapon's source at dawn, although "dawn" was a relative term on the planet they were stranded on. The thick gray clouds that covered the sky seemingly never allowed the system's sun to break through. The pitch black night gave way to a less-dark early morning, which in turn eventually gave away to an oppressively gray day.

The 20-kilometer march confirmed that the area the survivors had crashed in was representative of the rest of this part of the planet: one seemingly never-ending rocky plain with only occasional hills to break up the monotony. The only plant was a dark green moss that covered the ground and the lower hills. Nothing chirped or buzzed or scurried either. A dead stillness reigned.

_"Alright, then. I'll be the one to say it,"_ Sergeant Moake announced about five kilometers into the trek. _"It's too quiet. No people, no animals. Not even anything rustling in the wind."_

_"Well, at least this moss is spongy. It feels like I'm marching on a gym mat,"_ Private Campbell replied. _"Probably doesn't bother you that there's nothing organic around, does it, geth? Or did the quarians actually program you guys to find the quiet troubling?"_

The synthetic soldier turned its head to the human. _"The geth were built to be servants for the quarian-creators. Our consciousness was initially created through cooperative networking of individual programs. That networking remained a necessity for most of our existence. To a geth, being alone is anomalistic."_

_"Anomal-what?"_ Campbell replied.

Moake chuckled._ "It's saying, 'Yes, it creeps me out to be this alone too.'"_

_"Affirmative,"_ the geth replied. _"Addendum: this platform has accepted Karlsson-Lieutenant's designation as 'Sven' for analog communications. Please demonstrate organic-synthetic cooperative symbiosis by using it."_

Moake laughed again. _"Okay, 'Sven' but only if you promise to show me how to make Swedish meatballs."_

Karlsson observed the conversation but said nothing. She took it as a good sign that the others were at least getting used to having Sven around and, more importantly, that the geth appeared to actually be on their side. She had enough to worry about without the possibility of a replay of last night's near-firefight adding to the pile. After two decades in the Alliance Navy, this was her first command. The lieutenant had spent most of that career working in logistics and managing supply chains. It was something she had much more of a natural aptitude for than leading marches to an unknown location. It couldn't be helped though. The surviving crew of the Alsace was stranded and she was the only officer left. If they were going to get off this planet, she would have rise to the occasion. 'What's going to happen is we're going to track the energy to its source, find the thing that caused the Alsace to crash and either turn it off or, if we can't figure that out, wreck it. Then half of us ride out on the geth's ship and come back later for the others,' she repeatedly thought to herself.

She was concerned about whether she had been right to have Corporal Jimenez come along on the march rather than having him stay at the campsite and recover. Biotics were well-known to suffer a host of problems like cripplingly painful migraines but the corporal had previously been one of the lucky ones who didn't. That had made his collapse the previous night troubling. So was the clearly still-inflamed spot where his biotic amp was connected to his spine. Yet Jimenez had announced that morning that his migraines had subsided and he was feeling better. With the number of surviving crew so small Karlsson didn't want to let anyone out of her sight, so along he came.

_"Holding up okay, Jimenez?"_ Karlsson asked. _"You're wheezing a little."_

_"Just haven't done a march in a while,"_ Jimenez replied. In truth, he had only partly recovered. The corporal still felt dizzy and out of sorts but did not want to become a burden for the others, so he hid it. Like many biotics, he was sensitive to being treated and looked at differently. Being left behind, particularly on this planet, would have been intolerable.

Sergeant Feinberg, who had been taking point in the march, motioned the group to stop. He pulled out his lancer and spied through its scope._ "Over there! Another crashed ship."_

Karlsson ordered the group to divert to the site. The wreck turned out to be a frigate-sized asari ship that had crashed into the side of a hill. The planet's moss had largely overgrown the ship's port side, which was closest to the hill, but the starboard side stuck far enough out that either the moss had yet to reach there or it had tried but the wind had scraped it off.

Campbell, Karlsson and the geth clambered up the wreck and lowered themselves inside through a tear in the hull they found. A quick search of what few areas in the ship's interior were accessible found no skeletons or much of anything else, just a thick layer of dust everywhere._ "No loose items left and a lot of the panels have been opened and stripped of circuits,"_ Campbell noted as he scanned a flashlight across what remained of the command center. _"There must have been some survivors who then stripped the ship of everything that wasn't nailed down. Hey, asari live for a long time! Even if this wreck is really old some of them might still be alive!"_

_"Negative,"_ Sven replied. _"Ship employs various asari design methods phased out more than 1,200 years ago. That exceeds asari lifespan. Planet's lack of consumable flora and fauna would have prevented survivors from existing after one year even with rationing and use of deceased crewmates to supplement food stores."_

'Cannibalism doesn't sound any better when you put it that way,' Karlsson thought to herself. She let Sven's comment slide however. The lieutenant didn't want to even contemplate the topic, especially since the geth was right that the planet's lack of any edible plants or animals meant that long-term survival was probably impossible if the crew remained stranded.

Karlsson found a half-open passage on the side of the commend center that lead into a small room. _"Hang on, I'm going to check this out,"_ she told the others. The door was stuck on some debris but she managed to squeeze herself through. One of the room's computer panels appeared largely untouched and Karlsson used her omni-tool to give it a jolt of power. The panel lit up and a holographic ghost appeared before Karlsson.

_"Commander Sarissa Nuwani of the Ishara, establishing a new ship's log,"_ the shimmering hologram said in a faint, wispy voice, evidently the loudest the panel could muster from a single omni-tool charge._ "My ship was brought down by an electro-magnetic pulse weapon of some sort. A crash on the planet surface has severely damaged the Ishara and we lost 18 of the 72 crewmembers. We've been able to determine the location where the pulse weapon originated from, and, thank the Goddess, it's not far from the crash site. I'm leading a detachment of our best huntresses and engineers to find and neutralize the weapon. Once we do that, repairs should only take two weeks before the Ishara is space-worthy again."_

It was the sole log entry.

_"Lieutenant, did you find anything in there?"_ Campell shouted from the commander center.

Karlsson squeezed back through the doorway in the command center. She coughed loudly and rubbed the dust off of her gloves, hoping the actions would disguise her trembling hands and the tremor she felt in her voice._ "No, there's nothing for us here,"_ she told Campbell and Sven. _"Let's get out and return to the mission. We still have most of a day's march ahead of us."_

* * *

The survivors continued their trek towards the energy source. The gray morning gave way to an equally gray afternoon. The planet landscape remained unchanged too. Only a simple howling wind provided any sound at all.

_"Damn, I wonder how many of these hills are just ships that have been completely covered over with moss,"_ Feinberg said to no one in particular.

_"Perhaps many,"_ Moake interjected. _"I'm thinking more and more that Borman's comparison of this planet to that 'Bermuda Triangle' was really quite apt."_

Feinberg spun around towards Moake, his lips curled into a sneer. _"Dammit, don't you start on that too. It was just some stupid superstition. It wasn't real."_

Moake remained casual. _"Oh? You yourself said ocean-going ships sank there. What caused that? No one ever knew. What caused our crash? We still do not know. What caused the other crashes here? We do not know. The parallel seems obvious to me."_

_"There is no fucking parallel!" _Feinberg sputtered, his hands tightening around the lancer rifle in his arms. "_Ocean-going ships sank all the time, everywhere. They sank because sailing in those days was dangerous. This-This is different! __Something dragged us down."_

_"Save your breath, Moake,"_ Borman quipped. _"Feinberg here is never going to admit he's wrong. Isn't that right, Feinberg?"_

_"Cute, Borman. Cute,"_ Feinberg replied._ "You think you're really fucking clever, don't you?"_

_"Hey, guys. Cool it,"_ Greene told all three. _"Remember what happened when you were talking about this same stuff last night? Jimenez got those biotic migraines and almost slipped into a coma."_

Jimenez winced at the comment but said nothing. 'They're afraid I could turn into a burden on them at any moment,' he thought to himself.

Sven the geth walked up to the biotic's right side. _"Jimenez-Corporal,"_ the synthetic asked, _"You have the ability to harness biotic energy?"_

_"Yes, I was born with it. My mother was exposed to eezo while on a transport ship to a colony,"_ he told the synthetic. _"Why do you ask?"_

Sven looked him up and down. _"Geth have had few opportunities to observe this phenomenon among organics. Quarian-creators very rarely obtained biotic powers and geth mostly remained isolated in the Perseus Veil system in the three centuries since the Morning War,"_ the synthetic replied. _"You are fortunate. Only 4.23% of humans obtain biotic powers at birth."_

Jimenez let out a grim chuckle._ "Yeah, lucky. I thought I was 'lucky' to be one of the very few biotics to avoid most of the really bad side effects. That's apparently no longer the case. Even before that, I wouldn't call the experience 'lucky.' I'd rather have been normal."_

The geth tilted its head and its central eye focused in on the corporal. _"You would not have wanted to be upgraded? Biotic powers remain one of the few ways organics still exceed synthetics."_

_"What if you could get an 'upgrade' that was just for you, not the other geth? One that made you different from them? And sometimes malfunctioned? Would you still want that?"_ Jimenez asked in response. Almost as soon as he said the words, he regretted them. He didn't want to give the crew more reason to think of him as a freak.

Sven let out a quick series of clicks and beeps, which Jimenez guessed meant the geth was thinking over what he just said. _"An enlightening perspective,"_ Sven eventually replied._ "Are you experiencing discomfort now?"_

_"I'm fine,"_ Jimenez replied. He didn't want to let on that a minor throbbing had started in his head over the last kilometer.

Feinberg snorted._ "You know, you could have figured this stuff out earlier, Sven, by talking to the humans on the Citadel. They have a lot of biotics there,"_ he told the synthetic. _"There's probably fewer of them now though due to that time your geth buddies tried to murder everyone on the station. Remember that?"_

_"Heretic geth choose to ally with Nazara, the Old Machine you called Sovereign,"_ Sven replied. _"True geth were not involved in the attack."_

_"Uh-huh. And was it heretic geth who..."_ Feinberg replied.

Karlsson cut him off. _"Drop it! Everyone!"_ The conversation abruptly halted and the march continued on silently.

Jimenez silently thanked her.

* * *

_"We must be getting close, right, Campbell?"_ Borman asked as the day edged into mid-afternoon.

_"Just another kilometer,"_ he responded, checking his omni-tool.

The announcement brought a wave of optimism to the group and they picked up the pace of the march. The ground began to slightly slope upwards, but the incline was gradual enough that the group maintained the stepped-up pace.

_"If it's just a kilometer, shouldn't there be something on the horizon at this point? Like a building or a ship? If its a weapon, it has to come from something like that, right?"_ Greene asked.

"_You'd think..."_ Feinberg responded.

_"I'm telling you, we're really close..."_ Campbell insisted as the group reached the crest of the hill they had been running up. _"It's ... right over there,"_ he said pointing to another empty section of moss-covered plains.

Feinberg cursed loudly. _"It's nothing! Phony. We've been set up. The damn geth..."_

Campbell interrupted him. _"No, the signal is originating from underground. We're almost on top of it."_

_"Alright, an underground facility. There has to be some way in. Start looking around, people,"_ Karlsson ordered.

The crew pulled out their lancer rifles and began using their scopes to scan the surrounding region. _"Lieutenant, east by southeast,_" Borman announced.

Karlsson walked up next to Borman and trained her rifle's scope in the same direction. At the base of a hill there was a structure and it wasn't just another crashed ship. Karlsson set the scope's zoom to maximum. It was a tunnel, and an enormous one, built into the side of the hill. The entrance was at least five stories in height and about as wide.

_"Anyone see anything else? No? Alright then, that must be it. Let's move,"_ she ordered.

As the survivors approached the tunnel entrance, it was revealed to be mostly carved stone but with enough metal work incorporated in it to indicate that it wasn't the work of a primitive society. Carved into either side of the entrance were a pair of creatures that were humanoid, but only barely. They were slender, elongated figures with extended, tentacle-like fingers and toes. Additional tentacle-like appendages emerged from their faces including what would have been their eyes and mouth. The grotesqueness of the figures was amplified by the fact that both "faces" appeared at first glance to be wailing in anguish. The Alsace's crew stood in mute silence as they gazed upwards.

_"What in the hell...?"_ Greene muttered. _"Anybody have any kind of clue what aliens these are?"_

_"Never seen anything like these,"_ Moake replied. _"I would have remembered."_

Sven let out a long-than usual series of beeps, clicks and stutters as it gazed at the figures. _"They are inusannon,"_ it announced.

_"You'll have to explain that,"_ Karlsson said.

Sven turned towards her. _"Inusannon. Organic species that dominated the galaxy before the protheans. Like the protheans, they were eradicated by the Old Machines. Many prothean cities were built on top of inusannon ruins. This eliminated most traces of inusannon civilization that remained after the Old Machines. This location appears to be the rare case of an inusannon ruin the protheans did not repurpose."_

_"By 'Old Machines' I assume you mean reapers,"_ Karlsson replied._ "But how do you know this?"_

Sven started to respond, then paused for a few seconds before continuing. _"The Old Machines told the geth of the inusannon. When we joined with them after the quarian-creators' attack, they sensed that we still preferred independence. They sought to impress upon us the futility of opposing them by showing those who had tried and failed in previous cycles."_

_"They told you about these creatures? Then how come they didn't tell you about the weapon that brought our ship down?"_ Feinberg demanded, his hand edging towards his lancer rifle.

Greene started to reach for his lancer as well. _"Yeah, good question."_ The others, even Karlsson, eyed Sven suspiciously.

_"The Old Machines did not reveal such a weapon to the geth,"_ the synthetic replied.

_"Mighty fucking convenient, huh?"_ Feinberg sneered. _"Lieutenant, we cannot trust this, this... thing."_

Karlsson hesitated. Sven's comments had been a stark reminder that the geth had recently been directly hooked up to the reapers. Dark thoughts began to enter her head. Could she really trust this geth? What if she had lead the crew into a trap?

Jimenez became the first to speak. _"Sven's got to be telling the truth. If the reapers had a weapon that could shutdown all functions on a ship, we would have heard about it by now. I mean, the whole turian fleet is fighting the reapers. Why wouldn't the reapers use this against the birds too?"_ the corporal exclaimed. _"Unless they don't know about it either."_

Karlsson stared at the geth but nodded along to Jimenez's argument. "_Yeah, good point. Feinberg, Greene, simmer down. We didn't come this far to fall apart now. We've still got to find the pulse weapon. And that means entering this tunnel."_

Feinberg and Greene grimaced at the lieutenant but fell in line.

As the other survivors headed in, Jimenez lingered by the entrance. Sven approached him.

_"Your assistance is noted, Jimenez-Corporal,"_ the geth remarked. It then noticed that Jimenez was rubbing his forehead. _"Are you in distress?"_

Jimenez took a breath and then spoke quietly. _"Don't tell the others, but yeah, I am. My headaches have returned and they've gotten steadily worse the closer we've gotten to the pulse weapon. Look, I may need your help later, ok?"_

The synthetic straightened and saluted the corporal. _"This platform will provide assistance as necessary,"_ Sven declared. _"Jimenez-Corporal, the others have entered the tunnel. We must follow."_

_"Yeah, we don't want to be left behind,"_ Jimenez replied.

The two then followed the others into the darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Corporal Jimenez had been dreading the journey into the tunnel. In addition to his increasingly painful headaches, he assumed the darkness would engulf him and the others and they would be forced to stumble through the dark with flashlights and omni-tools. But while the entrance to the tunnel had been dark, the downward-sloping path actually started to brighten a short distance into the trek. The walls and ceilings became covered in a fungus that gave off a reddish phosphorescent glow, turning the tunnel into a scarlet-colored twilight zone. The company's pace slowed as they stared up at sections of the walls and ceiling.

"_Hey, can we eat this stuff maybe?"_ Private Greene asked. _"It is a plant after all."_

_"Don't get your hopes up. Bioluminescence usually isn't a good sign,"_ Sergeant Moake said as he scanned a section of the fungus with his omni-tool. _"Yes. Quite toxic, in fact,"_ he announced as looked at the findings.

"_Purposeful cultivation by inusannon as illumination source a likely explanation,"_ Sven the geth said. "_Fungus needs no power source and automatically renews."_

Corporal Borman began emphatically shaking her head. _"I don't care what the 'scientific explanation' is, we're heading down underground and now everything is becoming redder as we go? After entering a tunnel with grotesque demons on either side? Dammit, Karlsson, that's it. I'm not - I can't go any further. I'm heading back to the surface,"_ she declared.

Jimenez contemplated joining her. The throbbing in his skull was tolerable -barely- but if it got much worse he would start to lose his ability to function. Waiting at the entrance of the tunnel until the others returned sounded like a good idea. He dropped the idea a second later when Lieutenant Karlsson stepped in front of Borman.

_"No,"_ the lieutenant told the marine. _"I am not letting you leave. There's too few of us already and we don't know what we're up against. We see this out together. End of discussion."_

Moake cleared his throat. _"May I make a suggestion? We need rest. Let's set up camp here. It's been a long day and we're all tired. I know I am. And we need to be ready for whatever we find at the end of this tunnel."_

Karlsson agreed and the crew set down their bedrolls. As uneasy as they were, the long march to the tunnel had left them drained and sleep soon overtook them. Jimenez and Sven became the only ones left awake.

_"Are you capable of entering the nocturnal state?"_ the synthetic asked Jimenez. _"You will perform sub-optimally if you do not."_

The biotic slowly shook his head. _"Between the headaches and the ... worry, I guess, nahh, I can't sleep. Even though we saw nothing at all on the surface and there's no indication that the underground is any different, I just can't get rid of the feeling that some boogeyman is waiting in the dark."_

Sven let out a low series of beeps and clicks. _"Boogeyman. Human term given to personify fears created by absence of illumination. Usually a belief restricted to children."_

Jimenez grumbled. "_Yes, I know sounds silly when I put that way. But with this headache, I just don't have the ability to explain it further."_

Sven's central eye focused in on the corporal. _"Further data unnecessary. Caution, alertness are pragmatic responses to unknown variables,"_ the geth replied. _"This platform does not require a nocturnal state. Will monitor area, alert Jimenenz-Corporal and others if potential threat emerges. Your survival a priority. This platform recognizes need for organic assistance to escape planet."_

_"We're all in this together, huh? Thanks. I'll try to get some sleep,"_ Jimenez said as he laid down on his bedroll. Sven's words were calming enough that the corporal's fatigue was finally able to overwhelm his anxiety.

The geth watched as Jimenez slipped into slumber, then strode a few meters further down the tunnel. The synthetic warrior began slowly pacing from left to right and back again, it's pulse rifle at the ready and it's single eye peering into the abyss.

* * *

Seven hours later, the Alsace's surviving crewmates were woken one-by-one by buzzing from their omni-tools' alarm function.

_"Damn, I needed that,"_ Borman announced as she stood up and stretched. _"Didn't realize how tired I was."_

Moake grinned as he rolled his head from side to side. _"We're close. Today, we find our way off this planet. I can feel it. By tomorrow night, I'll be looking at this planet from orbit."_

Private Campbell adjusted his uniform and knocked some dust off his sleeves. _"Oh, so you've already reserved seat, huh, Moake? I must have missed the lottery. According to Sven, he'll have to leave some of us behind to be rescued later."_

Karlsson cleared her voice loudly. _"Loving the optimism I'm hearing, but first thing's first. We've got to find the weapon and shut it down,"_ she declared while giving her lancer rifle a check-up. _"Sven, anything happen while we were out?"_

_"Negative,"_ announced the geth, still maintaining his patrol a few meters down the tunnel. _"No movement in vicinity. No sounds except organics' inhalations and exhalations during nocturnal period. They reverberated down the tunnel."_

The lieutenant nodded. _"We'll try not to snore so much next time,"_ she replied. _"Jimenez, you up for another march?"_

The biotic reached behind his head and touched the spot where his amp was implanted. The flesh was still tender to the touch. _"Yeah, I'll be fine though I didn't get much sleep. Had some bad dreams. ... I'd rather not talk about them."_

In truth, Jimenez had woken up with a persistent throb in his head and it required effort for him just to concentrate. But his spirits were buoyed as he looked at his fellow crewmates. They had at least gotten some much-needed rest and appeared re-energized. A few even smiled. Moake was right, the corporal decided. They were close to finding and then ending the source of their misery. Once that was done, they only had to march back to Sven's ship, which would take another day or so. The fact that people were already jostling for seats on the geth's vessel was a good sign. He wasn't about to spoil the good spirits, so he didn't mention his headache.

_"Alright then,"_ Sergeant Feinberg declared as he slung his lancer rifle over his shoulder. _"What are we waiting for? Let's do this."_

The group continued their march down the tunnel, which sloped gradually downwards for a kilometer then turned leftwards and appeared to level out. The red phosphorescent fungus grew thicker as they continued downward, covering the walls and ceilings entirely. It spread to large patches of the floor too before eventually covering that completely as well. The glow was bright enough to cover everything in a dim scarlet hue. The fungus also gave off a sour, musty smell and flecks of bright red grime clung to the group's boots and legs as they walked.

_"So, Borman, did any of those old-timers ever tell you that the Bermuda Triangle smelled like a refrigerator that hadn't been cleaned out?"_ Feinberg asked.

The fellow marine shook her head. _"No, that part never came up."_

_"This tunnel looks ... almost organic,"_ Moake noted. _"Maybe it *was* a seamonster that pulled down those old sailing ships and we're marching down its throat."_

The exchange was more lighthearted than the previous ones about the old superstition and Jimenez was grateful. His headaches were persisting but at least not getting any worse. He didn't need that worsened by the others arguing again.

After another kilometer down the tunnel, Greene, who was taking point, froze in his spot. The others halted too once they caught up with him and began silently staring ahead. A short but sharp downward slope in the path ahead revealed that the tunnel lead to a cavern - an enormous one that appeared to stretch out for a kilometer on either side and had a ceiling about 100 meters high. And inside that cavern was a deep gorge and on the other side, a city. A wide stone bridge spanned the gorge and connected the tunnel to the city.

The underground world on the far side of the gorge was a mass of buildings, monuments and what appeared to be temples, all built mainly from rock but incorporating some metal work as well. The structures were irregularly shaped and placed at odd angles that made them look as though they had tumbled over. It was almost as if they were a giant child's building block toys and their owner had recently thrown a tantrum. Huge buildings teetered on top of considerably smaller ones while others tilted in a way that surely prevented them from having anything approaching level floors. The city was, in any event, without any sign of life or activity. Nothing appeared to be broken or in disrepair. The whole expanse was seemingly untouched, patiently waiting in the scarlet glow of the fungus for its creators' return.

_"Damn, did one of you slip me some hanar mindfish?"_ Campbell asked aloud. _"Or do you all see this too?"_

Feinberg gave out a low whistle. _"And to think I failed that one alien architecture course I took at the university. I wish I knew about this then. I could have told them to shove those 'universal' rules they claimed all species followed."_

Sven stared at the buildings, evidently as baffled as any of the organics. _"Form does not appear to follow function,"_ it noted.

A pair of ornate pillars stood at either side of the bridge on the tunnel's side. Like the entrance of the tunnel, they contained images of the gangly tentacled creatures Sven had identified as inusannon. Karlsson lead the others slowly towards the bridge. As they approached, a figure emerged from behind one of the pillars. It was a living inusannon. The figure was two meters tall, gray, slender and hairless, its long arms and legs ending in long tendrils of their own. Additional tendrils emanated from its neck and face, the latter ones replacing what would have been been the creature's eyes and a mouth. It slowly glided towards the survivors, seemingly supported by the tendrils on its limbs but moving in a way that looked more like it was swimming underwater. It let out a series of guttural croaks and wheezes as it advanced, its head appearing to scan from one survivor to the next.

The Alsace's crew and Sven watched the creature warily, their rifles at their shoulders. Karlsson was about to direct a warning to it when Borman suddenly shouted, _"Die! Die!"_ and fired her lancer directly into the inusannon until the thermal clip popped out. The other survivors held back but kept their guns trained on the creature nevertheless. The figure's movements became quicker and more herky-jerky as Borman's rifle fired into it. Yet it was clearly unharmed. It halted its advance, hovering just in front of the bridge.

_"Borman, what the hell?!"_ Feinberg yelled at her, while keeping his rifle trained on the inusannon.

Karlsson briefly glared at Borman before re-drawing a bead on the creature. _"Dammit, I did not give the order to fire!"_ she shouted.

Borman ignored them both and instead started to jam another thermal clip into her rifle._ "Jimenez, what are you waiting for? Use your biotics! See if that works,"_ she yelled.

Jimenez instead bent down, grabbed a pebble on the ground and threw it at the inusannon. The rock flew through the creature and pinged off the pillar behind it.

_"It's a hologram!"_ Jimenez announced.

_"Erroneous. It is not a hologram. The entity reacts to motions and sounds,"_ Sven declared. _"It is a virtual intelligence construct."_

_"Why though? Who, what put it here?"_ Private Greene stammered, his rifle still trained on the VI.

Moake stepped in front of the inusannon VI. The creature let out a higher-pitched series of grunts and wails as the human swung his hand through the phantasm. _"Who put it here? The same ones who built of the city, I suppose,"_ he announced. "_I believe this is a guide, like Avina on the Citadel. This is the bridge to the city. Makes sense that they would put it here to greet people. The city must have a still-functioning power source somewhere."_

Karlsson stepped forward and placed her hand on the barrel of Borman's rifle, slowly making her lower it. _"They're right. It is a VI. Take your hand off the trigger."_ Borman twitched at first, then eased back. Karlsson nodded slowly, then turned towards the VI. _"Moake, turn on your omni-tool's translate function. Maybe we can figure out how to talk to it."_

_"Worth a shot,"_ he replied, fixing the tool's setting and holding it in front of the VI, which continued to alternately growl and wheeze in reaction. After a few minutes, Moake shook his head. _"It *is* registering the sounds as a form of language, but the sample size is far too small for even rudimentary translations. We're going to have to find more examples of the language."_

The lieutenant cursed. _"Alright, Campbell do you still have a fix on the source of the pulse weapon?"_

The marine pulled up his omni-tool and nodded. _"Directly ahead. Across the bridge and right through the heart of this city."_

Borman shook her head rapidly, bringing her rifle back up to her shoulder. _"No, no, no. This is not right. We must turn back. If we cross that bridge..."_

An awkward silence fell as the Alsace's surviving crew exchanged worried glances. Jimenez felt his headache ratchet up in pain and bit down on his lip to block it off. Feinberg slung his rifle over his shoulder and took a step towards his scared colleague. _"Borman, c'mon. We've come this far…"_ he told her.

Borman gulped and took a long step backwards. _"Don't make me do this. Don't make me cross it,"_ she pleaded.

Karlsson motioned to Feinberg to step back and then walked over to Borman._ "Mattie,"_ she said in a hushed voice. _"This is the only way. You must join us."_

Tears began to well up in Borman's eyes as she held her rifle up again. _"No, no. VI or not, this is Charon the Ferryman and the gorge is the River Styx. So what if there is some circuit somewhere powering this thing? So what if some alien built this as a VI millennia ago? It's still a ghost beckoning us to enter the city of the dead. To march past the gates of Hades. Dammit people, don't you get it? How many signs of doom in the path ahead like this do we have to see? How many symbols have to be dangled in front of us? How loudly does the universe have to shout?"_

Borman's lip trembled and her voice dropped to a quavering whisper. _"Why can't any of you hear it?"_

Karlsson took another step forward and looked Borman in the eyes, still speaking in a hushed voice. _"I know you're scared. But it will be better. You'll see. You'll understand."_ She took another step forward and embraced Borman. The marine lowered her rifle and buried her head into the lieutenant's shoulder.

_"I don't want to go. I don't want to go. I don't want to go..."_ Borman sobbed.

Karlsson whispered into her ear._ "Please, trust me."_ Borman wiped the tears from her eyes and nodded _"yes."_

_"Good,"_ Karlsson responded, then turned to the rest of the survivors. _"Alright, everyone. Check your gear, get a gulp of water and clear your heads. There's one last bridge to cross."_

* * *

As the Alsace's surviving crew readied to enter the city, Sven walked over to the VI. It stared at the ancient construct as it continued to hover by the entrance and speak in its garbled, guttural voice. Jimenez slowly approached the geth.

_"Learning anything new from this thing?"_ the biotic asked.

_"Negative,"_ Sven replied. _"Analyzing historic perspective. This city is all that remains of the inusannon culture, the dominant organic species of its cycle. The Old Machines took away all else, including most knowledge of inusannon existence. If our present day synthetic-organic alliance against the Old Machines fails, oblivion will likely be our species' fates as well. Not just eradication, but erasure from history."_

Jimenez grunted and winced, prompting Sven to look him up and down. _"Mental functions still impaired, Jimenez-Corporal? If so, has it changed with proximity to the city?"_

The biotic shook his head. _"It's actually been pretty steady since we got up. It seems to spike more when others get agitated. Their anxiety, anger, fear. Raised voices. That stuff."_

Sven straightened up. _"This platform will limit analog communications unless requested otherwise by organics,"_ it replied before looking over its shoulder. _"Jimenez-Corporal, the others are massed at the bridge."_

* * *

The trek over the bridge was mostly silent, save for the echoes from the crew's boots. Once they reached the far side the mood lightened. _"We're making progress. I feel it in my bones,"_ Moake declared.

_"I hear ya,"_ Campbell replied as he slapped Moake on the back. _"The city freaked me out when I first saw it, but there's nothing here. So there's nothing to be afraid of."_

_"Nothing? Perhaps not,"_ Moake remarked as he spied a column at end of the bridge. _"The glyphs on that pillar, they look like ones I saw on the far side. I wonder..."_

Moake waived his hand in front of the glyphs. An inusannon shimmered into existence next him, then began wheezing and croaking at the marine, who pulled up his omni-tool to record the sounds. Jimenez shivered at the sight of the thing even if he knew it was just another VI. None of the other crew appeared as unnerved however. Even Borman seemed to be taking the creature's appearance in stride. Moake finished the scan when it became apparent the VI was repeating sounds it had made previously.

_"Are we getting any closer to being able to translate these things?"_ Karlsson asked.

Moake checked the data. _"Closer, yes. Still not there though. If we find more of these VIs, we might be able to crack it."_

_"Then we activate as many as we can find along the way,"_ Karlsson declared. _"Let's move, people."_

The trek through the interior of the city went far slower than Jimenez had hoped given his headaches. The sights along the way did not help. The city was not spooky in any familiar sense of the word but it was nevertheless unsettling for the biotic. Nothing about it seemed right. The layout and structures adhered to no obvious logical sense. Apparent doorways were often not at ground level or were placed at irregular angles. Taller structures sometimes had extensions with walls and a ceiling but no floors. Buildings were often jammed together in a way that made the streets below impassable. Yet it was undeniable that the construction of every building and edifice was also elaborately and deliberately done. The city was the work of a madman, but a lunatic who was also careful, patient, skilled and granted all of the resources necessary to realize their insane ambition. Whatever the inusannon had been, they were not like anything humanity or even the other Council races had ever encountered.

Moving forward in a straight line was only possible for short stretches. Streets and pathways curved and shifted in random ways and often lead to dead ends or switched to an angle too steep to climb. Stairways would abruptly stop with sharp drop-offs, or the size of the steps would get steadily larger until people had to work together to boost and pull each other up. On a few occasions the survivors had to double-back as pathways simply stopped. The light grew dim as the buildings blocked the scarlet glow from the cavern walls and ceiling. Occasionally, the survivors found themselves in near-total darkness.

Along the way they spotted seven more of the VI glyphs. By the last one Moake announced that his omni-tool was close to being able to translate the language and transferred the data to the others. With each new VI's activation Jimenez became a bit more unnerved. At a few points in the journey they were high enough that Jimenez could spy some of the reactivated VIs in the distance as they hovered by their locations. The city, he realized, was slowly being filled with ghosts.

Jimenez was grateful that the others' morale seemed high, as it helped to keep his headache at a minimum.

_"Lieutenant,"_ Borman announced._ "I have something I need to say."_

_"Go ahead,"_ Karlsson replied.

_"I'm sorry for my, well, my breakdown earlier. I was wrong. I shouldn't have been afraid,"_ Borman told her._ "I've gotten over that. I'm with you now."_

_"That's good to hear. We won't mention this again,"_ Karlsson responded.

Campbell beckoned everyone to him and then pointed to an ornate, temple-like structure just a few hundred meters away. _"The signal for the pulse weapon ends over there. It's got to be inside that building."_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The temple was the first inusannon structure the survivors had come across where the creators' intentions seemed obvious. It was a planetarium. The central hall had a large metal orb suspended from the ceiling and six smaller ones placed around it, equaling the number of planets in the system.

_"A monument to their own space travel,"_ Greene muttered.

_"This way,"_ Campbell shouted, and lead the group to a level below the planetarium's floor, which turned out to be another large, open area. _"That's it!"_ he announced, pointing to a wall.

It was a vault door. The entrance was sealed and had numerous scorch marks, scrapes and gouges along its edges. Karlsson stepped forward and ran her hands along the surface._ "We aren't the first ones to get here,"_ she declared.

A lengthy search of the floor found nothing that would appear to activate or even connect to the vault door. The walls and floors were simply bare. The disappointment was brief. An omni-tool scan of the vault door by Feinberg revealed a weak spot. _"There may have been thousands before us who tried to crack this thing. They wore it down. We're going to be the ones that finish the job,"_ he growled. _"Everyone, give me your grenades, and then, uhh, stand back."_

The grenades were turned over. Feinberg carefully opened the devices and drew out the volatile charges, creating a single large bomb and placing it above weakened spot. _"Jimenez, put a biotic barrier around this. We need to redirect as much of the explosion's force as we can against this seam."_

Jimenez nodded and covered the makeshift bomb in a half-bubble of biotic energy. Feinberg hit the detonator and room rocked from the explosion. As the wispy smoke dissipated, the metal hinges of the door groaned and shifted. A puff of dust emanated from the vault door's edge and it slowly swung forward. As the door opened, lights could be seen flickering on inside it.

_"We're in,"_ Feinberg declared.

* * *

The vault door lead into a short corridor which in turn lead to a winding circular stairwell that connected three bunker levels. The interior was metal, not stone and clearly high technology, with what appeared to be screens, monitors and computer panels dotting the walls. Lights continued to flicker on throughout the bunker as the survivors walked through. A layer of dust covered everything. At the top level Moake found another set of glyphs indicating a VI and activated them. An inusannon VI materialized, hovering and swaying atop its tentacled limbs. Moake held his omni-tool up to it. A few minutes of the creature's wheezing and croaking followed.

_"I've got it!"_ Moake declared. _"We can translate."_

Karlsson strode up to the VI. _"Where are the controls for the weapon that disables ships in the outer atmosphere of this planet?"_ she asked the phantasm.

The VI turned towards her and writhed and twitched._ "The lowest floor,"_ it rasped.

_"How do we turn it off?"_ the lieutenant asked.

The VI hovered in front of Karlsson face, seemingly contemplating her. _"The main panel. Enter the following code,"_ it said, then flashed a series of glyphs.

_"That's it. Let's turn this thing off,"_ the lieutenant declared. _"Everyone, let's go."_

Sven turned to the lieutenant. _"This platform will remain here. It wishes to glean more data regarding the fate of the inusannon from the VI now that audio analog translation is possible."_

_"I'm curious too,"_ Jimenez announced.

Karlsson contemplated the pair for a few seconds. _"Moake, Campbell, stick around and see what they find out,"_ she replied at last and then lead the others to the lower level.

As they walked out Sven turned back to the VI._ "Do you have audio log recordings from the last organic to occupy this room before its sealing?"_ it asked.

_"Yes,"_ the inusannon phantom croaked.

_"Play final entry,"_ Sven requested.

The VI twisted and spoke in a somewhat lighter voice._ "It is done. The weapon is activated. The vault is sealed. This city shall be a tomb but the inusannon shall endure."_

_"Play penultimate entry,"_ Sven requested.

The VI spoke again in the lighter voice._ "I have a plan. I shall activate the weapon and contain it and its power source inside this bunker. I will not escape these rooms but none will enter. This planet will be lost but the other colonies will be saved. It is the only way."_

_"So the pulse weapon was not a planned attack, but some desperate, last-stand measure, then?"_ Jimenez asked. He then rubbed his forehead, his migraine still present.

_"That appears logical,"_ Sven replied. _"VI, play entry before penultimate one."_

The VI twisted and slided in front of them before speaking again. _"The sickness has spread throughout all corners of the city. I fear it has overwhelmed us. We were fools. We should never have brought them here for study. This bunker is safe for now but even I will succumb soon. The sickness spreads everywhere and corrupts all."_

Jimenez shuddered. Sven paused for a moment, letting out a series of clicks and stutters. _"VI, play entry previous to last one,"_ it said finally.

The inusannon stared into the geth's solitary eye, then spoke. _"We have made a terrible discovery. The remains of the monsters are infectious and spread a sickness that makes its victims serve the monsters. The infected ones have hidden pieces of the monsters throughout the city. It is an epidemic. I have retreated to this bunker to keep the weapon away from the enslaved."_

Jimenez shook his head. _"I don't get it. What does it mean?"_

Sven slowly turned to the biotic and appeared to contemplating him and the other Alliance soldiers. At long last it spoke. _"The entry indicates that the inusannon brought the remains of an Old Machine to this city to examine it. They did not understand that even parts of an Old Machine can indoctrinate organics and turn them into the Old Machines' servants. Theory - The pulse weapon was not meant to prevent aliens from entering the planet. The pulse weapon was meant to prevent the indoctrinated inusannon from leaving the planet and spreading indoctrination to other inusannon planets,"_ the geth said. As it spoke, it drew its pulse rifle.

Jimenez stepped back and held up his hands as he saw Sven holding the rifle. _"Why are you doing that? We're on the same side,"_ he asked.

Moake cleared his throat and Jimenez turned towards him. _"I think it's because Sven just realized something,"_ Moake stated as he pointed his lancer rifle at the geth. Jimenez saw that Campbell was also aiming at the synthetic._ "Namely, this: nothing has left the planet's surface since this bunker was sealed,"_ Moake noted, his face slowly breaking into a grin.

_"Affirmative,"_ Sven replied. _"Logically, the pieces of the Old Machine must therefore still be in the city. We have been among them all day."_

Moake nodded, still grinning. _"Stand back, Arturo. We will deal with this thing."_

Campbell and Moake squeezed the triggers of their rifles.

_"No! Stop! What are you doing?!"_ Jimenez shouted and threw up a biotic barrier in front of Sven. The barrier absorbed the Alliance Marines' fire, then flickered out. Before Jimenez could restore it, Sven returned fire with bursts at each human. Moake and Campbell were both hit squarely in their chests, the pulse rifle's fire ripping through them. Sven then swung its rifle at Jimenez, who held up his hands.

_"You killed them?! Why?"_ the biotic wailed. _"I thought we were friends..."_

Sven took aim at Jimenez, then paused and lowered its rifle._ "You objected to your colleagues' attack and defended this platform,"_ it stated. _"You are not indoctrinated as they were. How is this possible?"_ A series of clicks, beeps and stutters followed. _"Theory - Your damaged biotic amp has somehow blocked the indoctrination signal. You may be immune."_

The sound of rapid footfalls began to echo through the bunker. _"Jimenez-Corporal, we must evacuate. Your Alliance colleagues have been indoctrinated and now serve the Old Machines. They will destroy us,"_ Sven declared.

_"No, they wouldn't turn on us! They-"_ Jimenez told him.

Lancer fire sprayed into the room as Private Greene crouched from the doorway. Sven responded with a short, contained burst that tore off the human's right arm and left him shaking on the ground. The geth turned towards Jimenez and saw that he was bleeding out of a wound in his stomach. Sven grabbed the biotic and threw him over his metallic shoulders, then charged towards the stairwell. The synthetic soldier saw Borman, Karlsson and Feinberg scrambling up from the lower level, their lancers drawn. Sven fired a wide burst down the stairwell that caused the humans to retreat. The synthetic, still carrying Jimenez, then raced for the vault door and as it exited, pushed it shut. The vault lock was now broken, so the door could not be sealed but it was still heavy and slow moving. Having to open it again would slow the pursuers down, the geth calculated.

Sven carried Jimenez out of the temple and a short distance into the city until it decided it was far enough away to lay its human ally down and examine his wounds. Ducking into an alley, the geth took medi-gel from Jimenez's utility belt and began applying it. _"Jimenez-Corporal, what is your status?"_ it inquired.

Jimenez half-opened his eyes._ "Why-why did Greene shoot at us? I don't..."_ He looked down at the blood on his stomach and grunted in agony. _"Still hurts a lot, even with the medi-gel. Leave me. I'm no good,"_ he declared.

_"Negative,"_ Sven responded as it checked the biotic for other wounds. _"Jimenez-Corporal's apparent immunity to indoctrination makes him potential asset to synthetic-organic alliance. If your immunity is understood and replicated, it could deprive the Old Machines of a key tool against organics and tip the balance of the war. Your survival is therefore top priority above all else, including this platform's own survival."_

_"Think ... we can we make it to... your ship?"_ the biotic asked, his voice reduced to gasping breaths.

_"Probability of success reasonable," __Sven announced.__ "This platform will ensure your safe passage off this planet and back to the Alliance. It will carry Jimenez-Corporal if required. However, three indoctrinated former allies still have control of the pulse weapon. We cannot leave until they are neutralized."_

Off in the distance Karlsson's voice echoed through the city. _"Arturo! Where are you? You cannot trust that thing! It's not with us!"_

The geth finished sealing Jimenez's wounds. _"Theory - Indoctrinated former allies believe Jimenez-Corporal indoctrinated as well. They had no reason to believe Jimenez-Corporal was not also susceptible. This platform's presence precluded indoctrinated from speaking to Jimenez-Corporal candidly and assessing his status. As long as the indoctrinated believe Jimenez-Corporal to be indoctrinated also they will not harm him but additional collateral damage to Jimenez-Corporal is possible if this platform is nearby."_

_"If... If you say so..."_ the biotic muttered.

The synthetic warrior stood up and readied its rifle. _"Jimenez-Corporal, remain calm. This platform will return for you,"_ it said, then exited the alley.

* * *

Between the migraines, the wounds and the medi-gel, Jimenez was only even vaguely aware of the outside world. But when a series of automatic fire exchanges began to echo through the city, the clouds in his mind dissipated just enough that he could sit up and pay closer attention. A few minutes later, the sound of footfalls appeared just outside the alley, accompanied by a cheerfully humming voice.

Jimenez looked up and saw Lt. Astrid Karlsson striding into the alley, her lancer still in her arms and a smile on her face. _"There you are! I was worried about you!"_ she told Jimenez as she walked up and kneeled next to him. She reached out and caressed the biotic's chin. _"Turns out your buddy Sven was a bad, bad guy. But everything is ok now. We just have to wait until they come to the planet to rescue us. And they will."_

The corporal gazed up at her. He was only barely conscious and unable to think before he spoke._ "What about the pulse weapon?"_ he asked.

Karlsson continued to smile. _"We broke it to bits. Nothing will stop a ship from coming to this planet now."_

_"Broke it? But why?"_ he stammered. _"Turn it off, yeah, but ... we could still use it... in the war."_

_"Much too dangerous,"_ she replied. _"What if it fell into the wrong hands? If even one ship using it was lost and *they* learned how to use the technology? No, we can't have that."_

Jimenez shook his head. _"We... should ask the Alliance first."_

Karlsson held his face in both hands. Her expression turned sad and she slowly shook her head. _"Oh, Arturo. That could ruin everything. We might never know the reapers' blessings if we did that."_

The biotic's eyes were barely half-open. _"Blessings? But ... I don't ... understand."_

The lieutenant stared at him, her expression now sorrowful. _"You can't hear them, can you? Even now?"_

A series of beeps, clicks and static caused both to turn and look towards the entrance to the alleyway. Sven entered, its body scarred and pocked by lancer fire and part of its left shoulder torn open. But it was still functional and it aimed its pulse rifle at Karlsson.

_"Indoctrinated agent, step away from the biotic,"_ the synthetic warrior demanded.

Karlsson's smile returned. _"Remember when Feinberg took our grenades to open the vault door?"_ she said as the geth drew a bead on her. _"Well, he never asked if I carried a spare."_

The lieutenant opened her hand to reveal a grenade. She threw it towards the opening of the alley.

_"No!"_ Jimenez shouted and threw out a biotic barrier in front of the geth. The grenade hit the barrier and bounced backwards before it exploded. A cloud of dust and debris filled the alley.

Sven sprinted forward as the biotic barrier flickered away. _"Jimenez-Corporal, what is your status?!"_

The inusannon city remained silent.

_"Jimenez-Corporal...?"_

* * *

_Alliance News Network - In an unexpected benefit following the geth joining the anti-reaper coalition, the synthetic race has recently provided Council races with a complete translation of an ancient language belonging to a pre-prothean race called the inusannon. "It's an astonishing find that scholars will be pouring over for centuries after we win the war," said noted archeologist Dr. Liara T'Soni. "There's so little we know about what really happened to the inusannon. This will fill in a lot of gaps in our knowledge."_

\- The End -


End file.
